Rob’s blog
Drupal 4.7 is out
The scoop. This is one of the online world's more interesting success stories. Drupal, now arguably the leading open-source content management system, is attracting both a huge installed base (55,000 sites, according to drupal.org) and a snowballing developer...
Abusing a captive audience: DVD trailers
Ianiv blogs about one of my pet peeves: DVDs that force you to sit through ads before you get to see the movie you paid them for. But with this DVD first you get a copyright notice, then a short clip about how bad it is to download movies (stop saying copyright...
Liberal leadership web roundup #1.3: Kennedy, Bevilacqua no longer MIA
Gerard Kennedy and Maurizio Bevilacqua are, I'm happy to report, among the living. Bevilacqua was hanging out at the apparently un-Google-able maurizio.ca, and Kennedy's site went live, as far as I can tell, today. Kennedy's site is still a little rough around the...
Tagging Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs is known for her vision of vibrant, liveable cities. But as Alex posts at Civic Minded, her prescription for a viable city is also the recipe for a thriving online community. And Alex has a terrific suggestion for one way to remember her: These still-early...
Liberal leadership web round-up #1: online, it’s barely a race
While various political bloggers have been batting candidates back and forth for several months now, the Liberal candidates themselves have so far – with one or two notable exceptions – given cyberspace a wide berth. Several declared candidates have no visible...
Next April 1st, not so much with the fooling
You didn't have to look too far on April 1st to find examples of web sites playing practical jokes on their readers. And you didn't have to look much farther to find examples of readers who were getting mighty tired of the practical jokes. 2006 may go down in online...
Shhh! Performancing 1.2 is ready!
Firefox just automatically detected a new version 1.2 of Performancing, the Firefox extension that gives you a word-processor-like interface for writing blog posts. Funny thing is, even the Performancing web site is still listing the current version as 1.1.1. Which...
How to pitch a blogger (or at least, this blogger)
A few days ago, a visitor left a pitch for a new, anonymous blog as a comment on one of my posts. Here's what ticked me off: It had exactly nothing to do with the post. It's already been left word for word on at least one other blog (on an equally off-topic post)....
When you should stay the hell away from the podium
Funny: in February, I led off a presentation at the Ragan Speechwriter's Conference with the story of how Bob Rae was booed loudly (and embarrassingly) at the Skydome when he appeared to congratulate the Blue Jays on winning the World Series. Now the same thing has...
Is Google killing the smart-ass headline?
Yes, according to the New York Times: [N]ews organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded....
Judy Carter, comedy maven, is blogging
Comedy update #2: The inaugural post is up on Standup Comedy Tips from Judy Carter. Her books on standup comedy are the de facto bibles in the field, and I'm hoping she'll come back to Vancouver sometime soon for one of her legendary workshops.
Lives gone in a Flash
Via Shel Holtz, here's a highly compelling use of Macromedia's oft-maligned Flash technology: Iraq War Coalition Fatalities. This is one area where Flash excels – telling stories visually, in this case the loss of life among the U.S. and its allies in the Iraq war....
Why, yes — I’d LOVE to speak at your event
Public speaking and speechwriting: the essential guides
Looking for advice on public speaking, speechwriting and leadership communications? Here are some of my most comprehensive posts, on topics that people ask me about most often.
